Those Wounded In Body
by flecksofpoppy
Summary: The sites, sights and sounds of loss. Written for Final Fantasy Exchange 2013 for licoriceallsorts.


Written for FF Exchange 2013 for licoriceallsorts. Prompt was: _"Boardroom battle, with or without Turks. Might include Barret or Cid."_

* * *

**Those Wounded In Body  
**

_If someone asks, 'What are these wounds on your body?' they will answer, 'The wounds I was given at the house of my friends.'_  
(Zechariah 13:6)

You've been involved in military operations, in stealth missions, in sniper assignments, in almost every type of paramilitary action the Company has ever pursued.

However, nothing has quite prepared you for the weekly Executive Board meetings that you've been forced to endure since the day of your appointment as leader of a fledgling band of bodyguards, or as it's now called, the Department of Administrative Research.

There are always pads and pens laid out on the mahogany conference table, as if inferring that every participant should be taking notes; but you've never particularly liked taking off your gloves. The smell of well-worn leather, gunpowder and Materia burnt into the air – a certain type of olfactory alloy that can't be replicated – that's where you belong. You pride yourself on tidiness, but your job is a brand of messy that doesn't deal in stains that come from ink.

Every week without fail, amidst the rustle of papers, pens, coffee cups: Heidegger complains about the muffin selection; Scarlet clicks very red, very fake nails against the table as she waits for the meeting to start; Hojo comes late and leaves early (off to do things no one _really_ wants to know about, regardless of whether they fund him); and Reeve (at least at the beginning) mostly keeps his head down and stares intently at the barrage of safety reports he's prepared about various parts of the city's infrastructure.

You decided you liked Reeve some time ago, particularly based on the looks he inadvertently makes when Scarlet insists on holding the floor for twenty minutes to argue her case for funding to develop yet another piece of expensive weaponry.

It was a short time after he'd started that your eyes had met accidentally over the table, and for the first time in what seemed like years, you thought you might smile; Reeve _had_ smiled.

Reeve can be trusted, but you know instinctually that his starring role as Daniel in the Company den can't end well. Nevertheless, he's a welcome distraction from monotonous droning.

His presence makes you recall the first time you ever sat in one of these chairs, drumming your fingers nervously against one of the armrests on your second day – you looked a bit like Reeve when you first started, though producing far more fear if only in title than the director of Urban Development can. Regardless, you found quickly that no matter who or what you are, how feared or how mocked, keeping perfectly still is the only way to survive in the Shinra General Electric Company.

Best strategy: play dead like a loyal dog.

* * *

There's an interesting item on the agenda today.

The space program has been a long source of conflict between the President and his son, and you wonder where your current superior's remains might end up in the next decade. Rufus Shinra might be young, rash and short-sighted, but he's not clueless.

The agenda says that one, Captain Cid Highwind, will be attending the meeting to discuss the current attempt at space exploration. It's launch Number 26, and even Scarlet isn't condoning it. There've been too many accidents, which means too much money drained from other departmental budgets. It's the President's pet project, and everyone else's headache.

There's nothing to contribute as you go through business as usual – your mind is on Reno and Rude, whom you've sent to Gongaga to inspect a recent leak in one of the reactors and report back – until Highwind walks in.

He's young – probably around the same age as Tseng – and he smells of tobacco smoke. It's a scent that cuts through the expensive leather and weak coffee, and you can't help but inhale just a little more deeply; it feels like walking outside.

He fidgets in obvious discomfort with a bad tie knotted haphazardly at his neck, as if some lab rat had broached the topic of aesthetic presentation at the last moment.

"Captain Cid Highwind, here to represent Shinra Launch Number 26 of Rocket Town."

He's blunt and has the trace of a country accent he hasn't bothered to try and cover up like most do while in Midgar (there's a reason why Rude doesn't say much).

"Twenty-sixth's time's a charm," Scarlet says, leaning forward with a smile and resting her head in her hand, "as they say."

President Shinra looks enthusiastic, missing the meaning of Scarlet's words; he's getting dull.

Rufus, on the other hand, stares calmly down at his own wavering reflection in the coffee cup as he idly circles a plastic stir over and over. It's common knowledge that he thinks the space program is a waste of time, that he's growing to be a bit of a nefarious force.

He still has the face of a boy, but eventually, he'll have the power of a king. And you've taken note over the years that Rufus never shows his teeth.

Reeve looks somewhat brooding as he stays quiet. He'd tentatively voiced support for the space program at the beginning of his tenure, until Scarlet had casually mentioned over the muffin plate that she'd identified a few abandoned sector neighborhoods as possible test sites for her new generation of Mighty Grunts.

_"I wouldn't need those sites, of course,"_ she had said at the time, smiling at Reeve in a rather unsettlingly sultry way for an 8:00 a.m. meeting, _"if my budget wasn't being drained by that ridiculous space program."_

After that, Reeve had stayed quiet, and his plans for the rehabilitation of those areas slowly went forward without any further threat of heavy artillery testing sites.

"This time it'll work," Cid says, interrupting your thoughts.

He's gritting his jaw, a determined look on his face, and his fingers are twitching; most likely to tear that tie off his neck that looks as unnatural to him as using a pen instead of a gun feels to you.

"We'll reinvest in this initiative and show all of the Planet's citizens what Shinra is capable of," the President declares definitively.

Rufus is smiling now into his coffee cup, a small twist of his lips and a downward expression, as if immersed in a private joke with himself.

Heidegger hasn't said anything yet, and you realize that he's also busy watching Rufus. He looks like a toad, his beady eyes staring out from the jagged lines of scar tissue and bristly black beard.

You've always held a particular distaste for Heidegger, since both him and his department are the antithesis of the Turks. His (usually ineffective) approach to yield results is to smash as many things as possible with as much force as possible. He's been on the Executive Board the longest, and you've heard rumors that the scar on his face is actually from test firing a new type of ray gun that went wrong, not a battle injury.

Unsurprisingly, it was Scarlet's design, and also her suggestion that he have the privilege of testing it first as the head of Public Safety.

"And what's your back-up plan if all of this goes wrong?" Rufus says, finally looking toward the end of the table at the President and Cid; it's unclear at which one of them the question has been directed, though.

Cid apparently has no problem with answering, uncaring that he might be cutting off the President of Shinra General Electric, and retorts emphatically, "Nothing will go wrong. And even if it does, we'll keep going with the launch. We're going to do it this time."

Rufus doesn't seem interested in Cid's impassioned response, since he's turned unexpectedly to meet you and Heidegger stare for stare.

Heidegger immediately looks away once he realizes he's been caught studying Rufus, but you don't blink. Somewhere in the background, Cid is saying something else about improved safety protocols and more qualified staff, but you're far more interested in the way that Rufus's eyes have strayed from yours to study the marks on your cheek.

The even temperament gives way as curiosity becomes plainly written over his face, betraying the presence of a boy still toying with power (and succeeding in this moment); he's wondering about you, about the scars you have, and probably about the prosthetic limb currently covered by a suit jacket and black leather glove.

"You'll die," Rufus says bluntly. The answer is directed at Cid, but he's still staring at you.

There's a beat of tense silence, until the President halts the conversation, barking, "_Enough_. The final construction of the rocket will go forward as planned. Highwind, you're dismissed."

Cid gives a stiff, awkward salute, and turns on his heel.

Later that morning, as you leave the building to rendezvous with Tseng outside of Midgar, you catch sight of Cid leaning against the building, smoking a cigarette. The tie is gone, and he has one hand shoved into his pocket, tense.

He inhales and waits, then lets out a strangely elegant, slow stream of white smoke. It's the control he has over his breath, the way he incrementally takes in the poison, that makes you think maybe the launch really will succeed with him at the helm.

People rarely have the opportunity to die for dreams these days.

* * *

Occasionally, you dream that you're missing more limbs than just one.

You wake up sweating, flexing your fists and searching for your gloves, your gun, anything to combat the strange fever dreams that plague you. Sometimes, you can't remember which arm you still have.

Occasionally, you dream of Felicia. You can still recall her voice (you always can, no matter how much time passes) and she tells you stories of all the places that you've razed, all the people you've captured, the ones you've killed. She narrates it like a fairytale, laughing and telling you that it's only fair to make a notch for each piece of scorched earth you've left on the Planet.

And so you being to make notches up your good arm, bloodletting, mimicking the same slice of scar that Tseng's brush with death left on your face. It's a record of everything that makes you a monster, a memorial for everything and everyone left ruined, including you.

Occasionally, you dream that you've disappeared altogether, that not even a single scar is left to attest to your existence.

* * *

This time, instead of shooting toward the stars, they want to dig into the earth.

There's been some concern at the Corel reactor construction site that a certain faction of townspeople are against its finalization, and so they've apparently sent this man as their representative.

Barret Wallace, item number two on the agenda, is a large man with an obvious, earnest conviction; but you can't tell whether or not he's much of a leader.

"Reactor'll do our town good," Barret drawls, making no effort to fold his hands behind his back in a show of deference. "We dug the tunnels, and we're not going to leave 'em unfinished."

Scarlet looks with interest at Barret, sizing him up.

"You don't agree with Dyne, then?" she asks, clicking her nails against her teeth and smiling with sharp white teeth.

Barret's eyebrows raise at Scarlet's familiarity with his hometown and he crosses his arms defensively over his chest.

You'll give Scarlet credit where credit is due: she's far from stupid.

"Ain't none of your business," he replies, scowling. "Point is, we don't got a problem. That's what I came here to say."

President Shinra waves him away, saying, "We've already been through this. The reactor is almost complete."

Barret nods slowly, surveying them all carefully.

You watch his hands; he has rough-tipped fingers, knuckles scarred from a lifetime of hard work, and a grip that could probably twist the barrel of a gun into a knot.

His type of earnest, unselfconscious strength is what intuitively attracts others without even trying.

"Well, then," Scarlet says tartly, "give my regards to Dyne."

Later, when the Corel reactor is imploding and your dreams bleed into reality with Elfé's voice, you finally do disappear at the same time as two hands.

* * *

Your execution is in four days time.

Scarlet is standing at your cell, and you can't help but be fascinated by what it's like to be on the other side of a cage. You've been in these cells more times than you can count; you've seen the way that florescent light glimmers off human blood, "specimen" blood, Cetra blood, monster blood. You've seen every type of slow death there is to see.

"You've never had children," you say to her.

For a moment, the unexpected remark takes her by surprise; but then she laughs, harsh as always, all consonants and high keening.

"Of course not," she finally replies.

She snorts and flips her hair; the cloying scent of artificial flowers and burnt Mako ghosts over you.

"Well," she amends, and her smile now is as red as the blood you've seen spilled on these floors in your subordinates' sloppier moments. "I built my children, and unlike your little renegade hussy, they're equipped with Materia and munitions."

You smile at her jab, and the scar across your jaw pulls numbly, a stubborn piece of tanned hide, sticking.

"So then, of course I agree," she continues in a silky voice as she turns, smiling over her pale shoulder, the click of her heels echoing in the cold hallway, "that family _is_ important, Commander."

You think of Felicia, and your missing arm suddenly aches, a phantom pain that radiates out from the stump to your center. It feels like bleeding, the site of a fresh wound, pulsing like a heart.

"You look old," is the last thing she says as she walks away and leaves you in the cell to wait.

You dream of Felicia again as you fall asleep on the cot, of the Materia embedded in her hand; you flex your own phantom fingers and wish it upon yourself.

You're already a monster, a creature worthy of Hojo's experiments – a dragon, a mutation, an unnatural revelation of the Planet. Another scar won't matter to you.

You never expected them to come for you.

* * *

In your postmortem life, occasionally you still dream of that boardroom, of complex lines of stares and scars, all eaten up now by Meteorfall and flame.

You teach your daughter how to shoot straight with the power of her own able limbs; the scar on the back of her hand won't ever quite heal, but with both of you cradled in a scorched earth, it only seems fitting.

As guns replace hands, arms turn to metal, scars form on flesh – even as Rufus Shinra's skin darkens with the twilight of civilization – you watch from afar as you always have unless called upon, remaining hand tucked neatly into a black leather glove.

There's no redemption for you, and possibly not even for humankind; but you stay out of those conversations, as you always have.

Occasionally, you dream that you've regained all your limbs; and when you wake up, you hear Felicia's voice, humming to herself in the other room.


End file.
